Evolving Positions Available For CIOs

Looking to expand your career horizons as a CIO? The options are growing in a number of healthcare organizations that need IT expertise and leadership. In many cases the titles can be different than what you expect. It is important to read the position specification if you are interested in an opportunity. If you have the qualifications required, check out some of the following positions within different areas of healthcare IT. You might be a good fit.

Leader at a Health Information Exchange

The federal government, through HHS and ONC, has granted over half billion dollars in awards to 56 states and territories for health information exchange (HIE) development. Leadership titles can vary from Executive Director/President/CEO and CIO, but these positions are evolving and the model is still being formed. The leader of an HIE ideally should have these qualifications:

• Diverse HIT industry experience; hospital, payer, consulting, vendor
• Strong finance management experience
• Experience with complex outsourced contracts and service management
• Strategic but able to translate to operational but also executive
• Comfortable working virtually and knowing how to be accessible
• Ability to work with a very strong board

VP/CIO for multiple medical groups and their ambulatory IT

Health systems are actively adding more medical groups to their organizations for competitive advantage. Medical management consulting companies are growing in importance and need to augment IT leadership for their affiliated medical groups. Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) is an advocate for medical groups and offers HIT news and resources for its members. The title VP/CIO would be appropriate for this type of position over multiple medical groups. Here are some potential key qualifications:

• Proven track record as an IT leader in medical group and managed care environments
• Strategic IT planning experience
• Expertise in ambulatory EMR and other ambulatory systems and their implementation and optimization
• Highly collaborative management style with proven experience participating as active member of senior management team
• Experience developing strong working relationships with physicians, attorneys, and managed care executives

Medical school CIO

There are over 130 medical schools and colleges in the United States, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the IT needs for research and academic computing have grown. The IT leadership position is usually a CIO or VP/CIO. The qualifications can vary on size and scope of the job, but here are some specific criteria you may see if you are looking to move into a medical school CIO position.

• Previous IT leadership experience at a large medical school, health science center or academic health system (MD or PhD preferred)
• Strong data analytics experience, data warehouse, business intelligence, and a solid design approach for data presentation
• Working knowledge of Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA)
• Working knowledge of academic computing, research, or exploratory research background
• Demonstrated strategic thinking abilities and an  enterprise-wide perspective; Experience developing a strategic plan and moving an organization forward

I’ll keep you informed of other newly evolving CIO positions in future blogs. Share any new roles that you are seeing.